When we consider our relationship with God, is he limited in his actions toward us? The short answer is, “Yes, God self-limits himself in response to the nature of our relationship with him.” In any relationship there is a relational distance between participants. In intimate relationships the distance is small. Sometimes that space grows large as a relationship experiences hurt, anger, or ambivalence. This is true in the divine-human relationship just as it is in human relationships. When we grow distant from God, God is not able to be the kind of God that God wants to be. God’s possibilities within the relationship are more limited.* Consider Isaiah 59:1-2, , “Look! The LORD does not lack the power to save, nor are his ears too dull to hear, but your misdeeds have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that you aren’t heard.”
When we do not stay close to God through the dialogue of prayer God becomes distant. We like to say “If you are far away from God, guess who moved?” And while it is true he is always near, he becomes limited in our life as a result of our ambivalence toward him. This is the nature of any real relationship. Look at it this way: if he just created us to do everything he wanted, that’s not relationship, it’s slavery, or merely robotic response. In order to maintain the integrity of relationship both parties must be open to being affected by the actions of the other party.*
By allowing humans to be a true party in the relationship, according to Fretheim, “God makes himself vulnerable. People can now speak words to God that hurt–words that reject his Word, words that presume upon the relationship, words inimical to the continuance of a harmonious relationship.”*
Finally, if the distance grows between us and God, something else will fill the void…the enemy and evil. See Jer. 12:7, “I have abandoned my house; I have deserted my inheritance. I have given the one I love into the power of her enemies.
It is so important that we stay close to God through the dialogue of prayer.
*Taken from the article by Terence Fretheim entitled “Prayer in the Old Testament: Creating Space in the World for God” in the book A Primer on Prayer edited by Paul Sponheim, pp. 52-55.